This project started in 2003, in collaboration with Plastic Surgeon Dr. Vasu Karri to teach inguinal hernia repair to trainee surgeons. It was further developed throughout the years to simulate general open surgical interventions. Aside different underlying physics models, i.e. mass-spring and explicit Finite Element models, here we focus on the finer details of implementing such a simulator using advanced rendering techniques, collision detection and haptic feedback.

Earlier work on inguinal hernia repair (IHR) using a haptic/force feedback interface is shown in a movie.

The figures below show some snapshots of an open surgery simulation with haptic/force feedback. The figures show the scene with bump mapping off (left) and on (right) respectively.